1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device, such as a copier, a facsimile or a printer. Moreover, the present invention relates to a remote monitoring system for managing an image forming device, including a host computer of a support center connected to the image forming device via a communication line.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming device having a warning function to notify the user that an error occurs in the image forming device and causes the abnormal end of the image forming device operation is known.
Moreover, a remote monitoring system is known, wherein an image forming device is connected via a communication line to a host computer of a support center at a remote location from the image forming device, the host computer remotely monitoring an operating condition of the image forming device by accessing a stored log information of the image forming device through the communication with the image forming device.
In the case of the remote monitoring system, when an error occurs in the image forming device, the image forming device automatically transmits a repair call to the support center via the communication line (which is called an automatic repair call function). The repair call is immediately received at the support center, and an operator on the host computer of the support center can communicate with the user on the image forming device by telephone for the purpose of providing the user with recovery information about the error of the image forming device.
Further, an image forming device having a function to store operational records of the device as log information is known. The host computer of the support center accesses the log information of the image forming device at given intervals through the communication with the image forming device via a public telephone network, and analyses the log information so that the operating conditions and the frequency of errors of the image forming device are detected.
As described above, in the case of the conventional remote monitoring system, when an error, such as paper jam, occurs in the image forming device, the image forming device carries out the automatic repair call function to send a repair call to the support center. The automatic repair call function is performed for every error occurring in the image forming device. When the repair call is received from the user, the operator on the host computer of the support center immediately analyses the contents of the received repair call (the error information and the user information) and confirms the log information of the image forming device. Then the operator telephones the user at the image forming device to provide the user with the error recovery information.
However, when the automatic repair call function as in the conventional remote monitoring system is used, the repair call is always transmitted to the support center even if a minor error occurs in the image forming device. It is likely that the minor error is already recovered by the user when the operator of the support center telephones the user to provide the user with the error recovery information. In such a case, the telephone call from the support center operator to the user causes the routine jobs of the user to be interrupted, which will be inconvenient for the user. Actually, the repair call transmitted in such a case does not help receive the recovery information from the support center, and the execution of the automatic repair call function makes inefficient the condition of the communication between the image forming device and the support center.
In addition, when various repair calls from different image forming devices are frequently transmitted to the support center by using the automatic repair call function, even if a minor error occurs, the work load of the support center operators become too large to deal with all such repair calls, and it is difficult that the support center operators provide the users with recover information for all the repair calls.